"From a Window"

"From a Window"

Christian Wiman

After being diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer, Christian Wiman explains that he wrote this poem during a period of despair. Listen to his moving reading, which we couldn't include in our show. Download the MP3 and share it with your friends!

Incurable and unbelievingin any truth but the truth of grieving,

I saw a tree inside a treerise kaleidoscopically

as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.I pressed my face as close

to the pane as I could getto watch that fitful, fluent spirit

that seemed a single being undefinedor countless beings of one mind

haul its strange cohesionbeyond the limits of my vision

over the house heavenwards.Of course I knew those leaves were birds.

Of course that old tree stoodexactly as it had and would

(but why should it seem fuller now?)and though a man's mind might endow